cottar

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cot·tar

(kä′tər)

1. A medieval villein who occupied a cottage with a small piece of land in return for labor.

2. In Scotland and Ireland, a farm worker who, in return for a cottage, gives labor at a fixed rate when required.

[From Middle English coter, from Old French coter, cotier; akin to Medieval Latin cotārius : Medieval Latin cota, cottage (of Germanic origin and akin to Old English cot, cottage) + Latin -ārius, adj. and n. suff.]

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

cottar

(ˈkɒtə)

(Historical Terms) Scot (in the Scottish Highlands) a peasant occupying a cottage and land of not more than half an acre at a rent of not more than five pounds a year

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

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Noun	1.	cottar - a peasant farmer in the Scottish Highlands cotter bucolic, peasant, provincial - a country person
	2.	cottar - fastener consisting of a wedge or pin inserted through a slot to hold two other pieces together cotter cotter pin - a cotter consisting of a split pin that is secured (after passing through a hole) by splitting the ends apart fastening, holdfast, fastener, fixing - restraint that attaches to something or holds something in place

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In one of Burns's own poems, The Cotter's Saturday Night, we get some idea of the simple home life these kindly God- fearing peasants led-- "November chill blaws loud wi' angry sugh;* The short'ning winter-day is near a close; The miry bests retreating frae the pleugh; The black'ning trains o' craws to their repose; The toil-worn Cotter Frae his labour goes, This night his weekly moil is at an end, Collects his spades, his mattocks, and his hoes, Hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend, And weary, o'er the moor, his course does hameward bend.

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It has been adopted in no small number of the greatest subsequent English poems, including such various ones as Burns' 'Cotter's Saturday Night,' Byron's 'Childe Harold,' Keats' 'Eve of St.

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We slept till far into the afternoon, and then got up hungry enough to make cotter fare quite palatable to the king, the more particularly as it was scant in quan- tity.

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East Dundee has dropped the "interim" from Public Works Director Phil Cotters title.